Starving
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "She hasn't slept. Her eyes are gritty and the light in the kitchen falls in cold pale squares. She's starving." Set early season 5? Written for the kink meme, I guess. Prompt: "Beckett gets up to make breakfast wearing only his shirt. Castle interrupts for sex on the kitchen counter."


Title: Starving

WC: ~1700

Rating: M

Summary: "She hasn't slept. Her eyes are gritty and the light in the kitchen falls in cold pale squares. She's starving."

A/N: Uh . . . written for the kink meme, I guess? Or not written? Because I'm not sure it qualifies as "written."

Prompt: "Beckett gets up to make breakfast wearing only his shirt. Castle interrupts for sex on the kitchen counter."

* * *

It's not an apology, she's just hungry. She doesn't owe him an apology. And she's not making breakfast for him anyway. She's making it for herself. He can go to hell. It's just pancake batter and it's dumb to make it for one.

He's not up anyway. No, not him. He slept like a rock all night with his back to her. With the covers jerked up to his chin and the hard, uninviting knots of his spine jutting through the sheet.

She hasn't slept. Her eyes are gritty and the light in the kitchen falls in cold, pale squares. She's starving. Moving from fridge to cabinet to counter on autopilot and cursing the coffee maker under her breath because it won't brew faster. Because it's fancy and expensive and _slow_ and she just knows she forgot a step and it's going to be pale brown water when she pours. A hundred years from now when it's ready to pour.

She slams a drawer open and closed. The wrong drawer. The one that would make sense for the big utensils, so naturally it's not where he keeps them. Of course he doesn't.

She slams open the other—the one where he _does _keep them, even though it's _stupid_—and grabs the whisk. It rings out hard against the ceramic bowl. She sloshes in buttermilk without measuring and sets butter in a disgustingly cute copper thing on the pilot light to melt.

That's _his _thing. How _he _does it, and for a minute she wants to balk. She wants to throw it all into the sink and walk out. Throw a coat on over his t-shirt, shove her feet into shoes and go. She wants boxed mix and expired milk and a plate she has to blow the dust off because it's been so long since she's eaten out of anything that isn't styrofoam. She wants her own space and drawn shades and a fucking pancake turner where a reasonable person would put it.

But she's starving. And she hates pancakes from a mix.

She tips the butter into the bowl. She whisks hard and curses again. The buttermilk is too cold and it's all congealing. She did it wrong. The wrong order, or maybe she's supposed to scald the buttermilk or some damned thing. She whisks harder still, trying to break up the clumps, and the batter goes everywhere. A clot of flour and a thick splotch of oily milk slop over the side of the bowl and all down the front of her shirt. His shirt.

"_Fuck_," she mutters. She shoves the bowl away and spins for the sink.

He's there. Standing two steps away and still blinking back sleep and she didn't even _hear _him.

_Fuck_.

He's bare chested. He stands in the light and everything feels warmer. The pieces of the place come together. They make sense with him standing there, and _Fuck. _

She doesn't want to talk to him. She doesn't want to see him or anyone. She's starving. She wants boxed pancakes and drawn shades and the only chair she ever sits in.

"Hi," he says. Not _Good Morning_. The shortest syllable he can get away with. It's thick with sleep, but wary.

"Hi," she mutters back. She doesn't feel like it. She doesn't want to talk to him, but it's his house.

She pushes past him for the sink. She flips on the water full blast. It hits the big bowl she forgot about and fountains upward, a wave cresting and spilling down her front, sluicing pancake batter as it goes.

"_FUCK!" _

She slaps at the faucet and twists in place. She reaches for a towel that's not there. Not where any normal human being would keep it. She twists the other way and he's there. Towel in hand, of course.

"Here." He reaches for the hem of the shirt, the towel balled up in his free hand.

"Don't," she snaps. She snatches for the towel but he pulls it back. "Not like . . . there's oil. Butter. It'll stain if you . . . "

"It's mine, isn't it?"

He snaps, too. He swipes the worst of it away and throws the towel in the sink. His shoulders are high and they're right back in it. Last night and an idiotic fight about nothing. About everything.

_It's just a fucking toothbrush. _

But it's not. It's him _pushing _all the time and she should have just left. Last night. This morning. She should have just gone home.

But she didn't.

"Yeah," she says. Quiet and cold and she hates it. She _hates _it when they're like this. "It's yours."

She steps around him. She tries to but he grabs at her. Clumsy fingers banding around her arm and clutching at her hip. "Beckett . . ."

"Castle, _stop._"

Her voice catches. It's louder than she meant. Angrier than she means to sound. Less angry than she really is, though she can't say why exactly.

He hears it. He jerks back, hands flying wide. She steps into him and so it goes. She lays a palm on his shoulder. Taps his collar bone with the heel of her hand and her head down.

She lets it go. Lets some of it go.

"I'm gonna head . . . out," she says softly. _Home, _she was going to say. She meant to say, but she swerves at the last second. She lets it go. "Castle, I . . ."

She breaks off. There's something charged between them. All of a sudden the air is hot and cold and heavy. It tugs her chin up. It raises her eyes to his.

He's closer than she thought. Taller and crowding even though he's fixed in place. He's looming. Head bowed and hovering by her cheek. He's staring at her. At parts of her. Bare shoulder where the neck gaps and the twist of her thigh where the hem rides up.

"What?" she asks faintly.

His eyes flick up to hers. He looks surprised. Like he might've forgotten she can talk. He blinks. "You smell good."

"It's yours." She snorts and plucks at the fabric of the shirt. Jerks her hips to move by, because she's _going._ "I smell like you."

"Yes." He sets his teeth. He has her by the hip. By the shoulder again and it's not clumsy this time. "Like me." He buries his face against her neck. Rough pinpricks and the wet heat of his open mouth.

"Is that what you like?" She laughs. Digs her fingers into his shoulders and tries for brittle. She tries for sharp and cold and as angry as she feels as the small of her back hits the counter hard. "A woman who smells like you? A woman in your clothes?"

His fingers knot in her hair. He jerks her head back. He brings his mouth down on hers and she thinks he might be angry enough for them both.

"Not a woman," he snarls. "You. Me._This_."

He rakes savage fingers up her thigh. Snatches the hem of the t-shirt up and shoves it high as he sinks to his knees. He bares her skin. Searches with his fingertips until he finds it. A fading mark low on her hip that he covers with his mouth and makes new. "Your skin," he sinks his teeth into her. "My mouth."

She buries her fingers in his hair. She's dizzy with it. The harsh pull of lips and tongue and the heat of his hands roaming over her. Her head is heavy and whirling and dropping back. Her mouth is falling open with the sudden violence of it. The way it takes her—takes them both—every time.

"_This_," he says again and it's smug. His fingers trail up the inside of her thigh and he knows. He knows and he makes a production of it anyway. Of fingertips hovering. One palm smoothing along the front. Pressing into the tension of her shaking legs before the other lands. Before he draws a single, snaking path along the drenched length of her. "_This_. How wet you are for me. How good you smell."

He stands. Fluid and abrupt and she hates him. Hates that his fingertips are sticky with her. That they're dancing a breath in front of her lips and he's trying to make her say it.

"For me Beckett?" He just touches one fingertip to her bottom lip. Waits for her tongue to flick out and tugs back just when it does. Away from her.

She hisses out a curse. Snatches at his hand, but he's faster. He twists his wrist and yanks hard at hers. Maneuvers them both between her legs and asks again. "For me?"

"Yes," she breathes and he's hoisting her up just on to the sharp edge of the counter. He's pushing her knees apart and sinking hard into her.

"This is what I like," he chants in her ear. "You. Here."

He arcs up into her. Hard and sudden and his fingers are desperate and unkind. Digging into her thighs and she sees stars. She feels him, gushing hot into her and she's teetering. Not quite there. Livid and falling back. Falling the wrong way from the edge.

"Castle," she chokes his name out as he pulls back. As he drops away to his knees and his head knocks forward against her hip.

A curse dies half born as his hand drags up her thigh. As his thumb finds her clit and teases. Light. _Light_ and his teeth worry at the ridge of her hip. Point and almost-painful counterpoint.

"This," he whispers and dips his head. His fingers sink into her—_one, two, three_—and his tongue darts out. He laps at her clit and tastes the two of them. Breathes the words and she's quiet for once as she comes. She listens. "You. Me."

He eases her down with him. Rocks from side to side and curls her in his lap, off the hard floor. He kisses her. Drags his tongue and the taste of them both through her mouth and swallows the moan.

He pulls her into him. Shaking. He's shaking, or maybe it's her.

He's talking. Muttering. Half sentences and things he might mean to keep inside his head, but his lips are at her ear and he's kissing, biting, murmuring that he wants her. In his clothes. _This_. Only her, and he can't stop saying it. He can't. His hands roam over her and the words keep coming so she stops them.

She stops them. She catches his face her hands. Snags his mouth with her own and whispers that she's starving.

_Starving. _


End file.
